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Engineering Resources: Theses and Dissertations

About Theses and Dissertations

A dissertation or thesis is a document submitted in support of candidature for a degree or professional qualification presenting the author's research and findings.  (International Standard ISO 7144: Documentation — Presentation of theses and similar documents).

For most universities in the U.S., dissertation is the term for the required submission for the PhD, and thesis refers only to the master's degree requirement.

Other Universities

The best source to find theses is ProQuest Dissertations & Thesis GlobalPolicies regarding theses and dissertation collections largely vary between universities.  So check the library website of the university of interest.

NOTE: If you do not gain access to the electronic full text of a dissertation, use ILLiad to request theses from other universities.  The Carnegie Mellon Libraries subsidizes the cost up to $35.

Carnegie Mellon University

Carnegie Mellon theses are now ONLINE and can be searched through the ProQuest database Dissertations & Theses @ Carnegie Mellon University that enables access to citations and abstracts of all dissertations and theses, as well as the fulltext in PDF format.  Scroll down and select Dissertations & Theses, then do a regular search. Print versions are also available in the libraries collection.

The Carnegie Mellon Library catalog, uses the term THESIS to denote both masters' theses and dissertations.  However, the number of master's theses is limited.  Within the libraries, theses are located in designated areas and are shelved in alphabetical order by the author's last name.  The catalog treats theses and dissertations like books and they can be borrowed as such.  Theses may be in print, microfiche, or microform.

  • In the catalog use the Advanced Search:  search by author, title, or keyword limiting to type THESIS.
  • For a list of theses from a specific department, use Advanced Search to combine a keyword search for the name of the department with location THESES.  E.g., search for "Dept. of Computer Science" with THESES as the location.


Other Countries

Canada
Theses Canada Portal (National Library of Canada)
More than 300,000 theses and dissertations with more than 50,000 are available online.
 
UK and Ireland
This database offered by the British Library contains records for doctoral theses from UK higher education institutions and allows immediate download of an increasing number of electronic and digitized theses.
  The database covers ALL UK theses so, in theory, could go back to the 1600s!
 
Japan
Coverage varies depending on the university. 
 
France
The database includes records of dissertations produced in French institutions.  Search for theses by limiting to Dissertations in Advanced Search.
 
Australia/Asia
A distributed database of digital versions of theses produced by the postgraduate research students at Australian universities.
 
Internationally
International database of fulltext theses and dissertations from a consortium of universities.

PhdData (The Universal Index of Doctoral Dissertations in Progress)
This site holds a database of doctoral dissertations in progress around the world.
 
Includes links to 100+ sites providing e-theses.

Center for Research Libraries:  Foreign Doctoral Dissertations
CRL has more than 800,000 cataloged foreign doctoral dissertations from more than 90 countries and over 1200 institutions.